Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 5:07 p.m.

2nd winter storm in days blasts central U.S.

By The Associated Press

This article was published February 26, 2013 at 7:51 a.m.

PHOTO BY AP/THE COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE, DON SHRUBSHELL

Tree limbs lay broken by heavy wet snow on Wehmeyer Road on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, after another winter storm dumped about eight inches of snow in central Boone County, Mo. The second major snowstorm in a week battered the nation's midsection Tuesday, dropping a half-foot or more of snow across Missouri and Kansas and cutting power to thousands.

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  The second major snowstorm in a week battered the nation’s midsection Tuesday, dropping a half-foot or more of snow across Missouri and Kansas and cutting power to thousands. Gusting winds blew drifts more than 2 feet high and created treacherous driving conditions for those who dared the morning commute.

About 40,000 people in northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas awoke to no power as heavy, wet snow weighed on power lines. Kansas City, Mo., was in a state of emergency as blinding snowfall — made worst by sustained gusts estimated at 30 mph or higher — made car and truck traffic too dangerous. About 8 inches of new snow had fallen on parts of the Kansas City metro area as the sun rose Tuesday.

Flights in and out of Kansas City International Airport were canceled, schools, government offices and businesses across the region were closed. City buses were getting stuck.

Numerous accidents were reported in the area, and Mayor Sly James declared the emergency in an unwanted encore to a major snowstorm that dumped nearly a foot of snow on his city just five days earlier. He urged residents to stay home, given that the new storm was expected to dump nearly a foot of new snow on the city.

A strong low pressure system fueled the storm, which also included heavy rain and thunderstorms in eastern Oklahoma and Texas.

The storm knocked power out to thousands of homes in Texas and Oklahoma and was blamed for the death of a 21-year-old man whose SUV hit an icy patch on Interstate 70 in northwestern Kansas and overturned Monday. In Oklahoma, a person was killed after 15 inches of snow brought down part of a roof in the northwest town of Woodward.

In the Texas panhandle, wind gusts up to 75 mph and heavy snow had made all roads impassable and created whiteout conditions, said Paul Braun, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Transportation. A hurricane-force gust of 75 mph was recorded at the Amarillo, Texas, airport. The city saw the biggest snowfall total in Texas with 17 inches.

Motorists were stranded throughout the Texas panhandle, with the National Weather Service in Lubbock reporting as many as 100 vehicles at a standstill on Interstate 27.

Schools and major highways in the Texas panhandle remained closed for a second day Tuesday. State officials said they hoped that stretches of Interstate 40 near the Oklahoma border, which have been closed since Monday morning, would reopen by Tuesday afternoon. Whiteout conditions further impeded efforts to clear roads of more than a foot of snow in western Oklahoma early Tuesday.